Astrid, Pale Elf Rogue (Solo)- Entry 3: Defiance Bay- Part 1
Defiance Bay is great. It's a super easy place to accumulate experience. It's fetch quests and cakewalks galore.
First we did all the fetch quests then we did the rest, starting with Helig.
We began with beetles and a salvo from Forgiveness.
And that was all it took. After that we just had to stab some dead people in the kidneys.
(Oh. I almost forgot: we got to Helig by steathing and we reached the Temple of Woedica through stealth, too. But you probably guessed that, right? We got our hood from the practice guy. Scored a rugged wilderness cap from the catacombs altar and something useless from the other.)
By now we had enough coppers to buy a very important item: the Rotfinger Gloves. These things are stupid- seriously overpowered when you find them. They let you cast Touch of Rot three times per rest and Touch of Rot three times per rest basically wins all the kith fights in Defiance Bay. Here's an example: Supply and Demand.
First, we dropped our beetles.
Next, Combusting Wounds via Ring of Searing Flames followed by Touch of Rot, via the Rotfinger Gloves.
Not much left to do other than accelerate the thugs' demise with a Jolting Touch. Astrid uses melee mostly for the procs. In my head I'm singing "I Wanna Proc" because I'm team dork for life and the 80's were hilarious.
All Hands on Deck was basically the same.
If you're wondering what Astrid's been doing with her coin these days, the answer is not much, although somehow she's broke most the time anyways (Sound familiar anybody? I mean in real life...). She buys lots of crafting bits because she likes to keep a spread of single use items available at all times. She prefers Fan of Flames scrolls, Jolting Touch scrolls, potions of Infuse With Vital Essence, potions of Deleterious Alacrity of Motion and potions of Merciless Gaze ( mostly because the animation looks cool). She's been upgrading her items, too. I'll give you a rundown in the next post.
It was time for some new armor, so we got the Crucible Knights their stolen-soul, mechanical-monster death squadron.
Standard start here: Beatles->Combusting Wounds->Touch of Rot
We took some early damage from Barbs of Condemnation. That was quickly healed with Second Wind, acquired via resting bonus.
We finished up the fight by shooting this guy in the face.
The Parable of Wael was a familiar tale. We started over on the right side so the casters and ranged fighters would see the beetles first, targeting them instead of Astrid.
And done.
Astrid's physical weapon strikes are almost always Azureith Jolting Touch crits or Forgiveness Finish Blows. The logic being that if it's just a regular strike, she can get more done with a scroll or an item charge. Why poke someone with a needle when you can burn them to a crisp?
By now Astrid was at level 6. And that means new friends. I'm talking shades. We put a pip in mechanics to bring us to 4 and selected Deep Pockets as our talent. We then took a snoozy-woozy in the Fletcher's Stay room of the Goose and Fox for the mechanics bonus. Base 4 + Fletcher's Stay + Gloves of Manipulation yields 7, which means we can open that chest over at the Valian Embassy, granting us the Obsidian Lamp. Here's the new inventory. It's shaping up. We need Shod in Faith and the Ring of Wonder, but we're pretty much where we intend to be from here to Twin Elms.
The shades made their first showing at Purnisc's place. We had fun here.
Forced to trigger the encounter in a disadvantageous position, Astrid opened with Shadowing Beyond.
She headed south, and the shades joined the party.
With the shades in place, we had no trouble dropping the rot.
Nyrid was ended with an 80hp shot from Forgiveness and we moved on.
We had to kill a couple of straggler mercenaries before heading upstairs. These were fun and roguey. The first guy took two swings. We opened with a crit our of stealth from Azureith's, triggering Jolting Touch. We followed with a Finishing Blow.
Same start for mercenary 2. These Jolting Touch strikes out of stealth almost feel like backstabs.
With Jolting Touch spent, we switched to scrolls. All it took was a nudge after that.
On the second floor we used stealth- which will work, even with the locked door, sans Shadowing Beyond.
Ok. Let's stop there for now. In our next post we'll cover the Doemenel questline. After that, it's time to face Irenicus in Spellhold Thaos in the Sanitarium.
Best,
A.